


It's a Metaphor

by yodasyoyo



Series: 2000 tumblr followers celebration! (Sterek fics) [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cats, Derek Hale is a Softie, Identity Porn, M/M, Pining, but yeah, like a really grumpy passive aggressive softie, soft nonetheless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 03:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19715584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yodasyoyo/pseuds/yodasyoyo
Summary: “No,” he says, staring down at Stiles. “You can sleep literally anywhere else, but not here. This is my space.”He shuts the door in Stiles’ face and goes back to his bed, climbs in, and pulls the covers around himself.The scratching noise at the door intensifies.“No,” Derek calls. “Absolutely not. Go and sleep on the couch.”Minutes later, a mournful yowling noise starts up.Derek jams both his pillows over his head and scrunches his eyes shut.It’s no good.“I’m not listening!” he calls.Or: Stiles gets turned into a cat. Derek has to look after him. Or something like that.





	It's a Metaphor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deli (deliciousirony)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciousirony/gifts).



> This is a gift for delicious-irony, who prompted with:
> 
> Sterek, “This is an excellent time for you to go missing.” Pining? 2 person love triangle? Mistaken identities? I’d love anything ^^
> 
> Confession: I didn't manage to incorporate the full words of the prompt? But I hope you think I played with the spirit of them. Also I added as many of the other tropes as I could possibly manage.

“Wait,” Scott coughs like he might vomit up a lung. “Where’s Stiles?”  
  
_Fucking witches,_ Derek thinks as he yanks his Henley up to cover his mouth in a vain attempt to protect himself from the thick greenish smoke that’s filling the tiny room. It doesn’t help much, but he remembers there was a window to the right when he walked in and he stumbles blindly towards it, his free hand raised to try and shield his eyes. Eventually he finds what he’s looking for, his palm hits the clear, cool glass and he fumbles it open as best he can.

Slowly the smoke begins to dissipate.

“She’s gone,” Derek says peering around the room.

“But where’s Stiles?” Scott says again. 

He has a point. One minute Stiles had been getting right up in the witches face, mouthing off, as usual. The next— poof! No witch. 

No witch and no Stiles. 

Jesus, the kids a menace. He never takes care of himself. Never seems to consider the fact that he’s human, just throws himself headlong where even werewolves fear to tread. If something has happened to him now— If that witch has hurt him, or worse, killed him, then Derek is gonna hunt her down and rip her spine out through her— 

“Oh my god,” Scott says, eyes widening in horror. “Look!”

The smoke finally clears enough that Derek can see what Scott is staring at. 

A cat. A scrawny cat, with mangy brown fur and big copper colored eyes. It’s sitting exactly where Stiles was standing just minutes ago, staring plaintively up at them.   
  
“Oh my god,” Scott says, his fingers massaging his temple. “Holy shit. Oh no. His dad is gonna kill me.”  
  
Derek looks at Scott and then slowly back at the cat. “Are you—” He swallows. “You think the cat is Stiles?”

With a worried huff, Scott turns toward him. “You see him anywhere else?”  
  
“Maybe the cat belonged to the witch. Maybe the witch did something--” Else, he’s about to say, but Scott cuts him off.  
  
“Yeah. Something like turn him into a cat!”  
  
Derek bites down on the retort that’s sitting on the tip of his tongue. The other options he can think of are ‘vaporised him’ or 'teleported him’. Both of which seem equally unlikely, and neither of which are gonna make Scott feel any better.

Not that Scott seems to be paying attention to Derek any more. He scoots forward on his haunches towards the cat and coos, “Hey, buddy! How you doing? Not so great huh?”

The cat stares up at Scott balefully, and from where he’s standing Derek thinks he can _sort_ of see a resemblance to Stiles. Maybe. Except there’s one niggling detail he can’t let go of. “Where are his clothes?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. If that’s Stiles, then where are his clothes?”

Scott scoops the cat, Derek’s still not willing to refer to it as Stiles, up, and cradles it in his arms, making little shushing noises. “It’s magic Derek,” he says, pitching his voice low, probably in an attempt to be soothing. “Magic doesn’t care about insignificant details like clothes. It’s _magic._ ”  
  
In Derek’s admittedly limited experience, magic cares a great deal about the details. Magic is pretty much ALL about the details. The wrong word in a spell, the wrong ingredient in a salve, can have catastrophic ramifications. Still, he moves closer and stares down at the little brown cat. Maybe. Just maybe. It could be. The judgmental look the cat is giving him for one thing. 

“Are you sure?” he says.

“I think I know my own best friend.”

“Huh.” Well if this is Stiles, then at least he’s alive. That counts for something. Relief blossoms tentatively in Derek’s gut, replacing the hollow bile-filled pit which had been seething there just moments ago.

“Ok, so here’s the plan,” says Scott. “You’re gonna take him home with you.”  
  
“Me? What? Why?”

“My mom is allergic to cats! I can’t take him home.”

“What about the Sheriff?”

“You really wanna turn up at the Sheriff’s house and tell him his only child got turned into a cat by a witch? No. I’ll tell him Stiles is staying with me, he’s working anyway, if we fix this quickly enough he never has to know.”

“Point.” Derek winces. “Fine. I’ll take him home. What are you gonna do?”

“Try and contact Deaton? He’s in Tijuana on vacation at the moment, but I should be able to work something out- find some way to reverse the spell. Here—” He nuzzles the back of the cat’s head one last time and then passes it over to Derek, who accepts it gingerly.  
  
“Don’t worry, buddy,” Scott says to Stiles. “We’re gonna have you back on two legs in no time. Look after him,” he says to Derek, seriously.

Derek stares down at the cat in his arms; it seems to be mainly scraggly fur and skin over bones, and a sassy attitude. That combined with the big, copper colored eyes? Yeah. Ok. Definitely Stiles.

Honestly, he has no idea how they get themselves into these situations sometimes.

-

It turns out Stiles as a cat does not like the Camaro. Oh, he’s fine when Derek places him in the passenger seat, with a muttered, “Do _not_ piss in here!” But the moment the doors are shut and the engine turns over, Stiles starts to wail piteously.  
  
“I have to,” Derek says, glaring down at him from the driver’s side. “We don’t have any choice.”

Stiles’ ears flatten and the volume of the yowls increases.  
  
“Look,” Derek says, “It’s a twenty minute drive, if that. If you didn’t want to do this, maybe you shouldn’t have pissed off a witch and been turned into a cat.” He thinks briefly that in an ideal world he'd have something appropriate like a pet carrier, but he squashes the thought down. Stiles isn't a pet. He's a person who has been turned into a pet. This will be fine. Absolutely fine.  
  
He pulls away.

By the time he pulls up in front of his own building, the passenger seat has been shredded, there’s a vomit-covered hairball in the footwell, and from the smell, something unspeakable on the back seat that’s gonna require a baggie of some description to collect.  
  
As soon as the engine cuts out Derek releases his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel and turns slowly to stare, first at the damage to his car, and then at Stiles, who is now back on the passenger seat, sitting primly, amber eyes staring up unblinkingly to meet Derek’s gaze.  
  
“You’re a little shit,” Derek says. “And when you’re human again, you are paying to fix all of this.”

-

Derek carries Stiles up to his loft, and deposits him on the floor in the living room. Stiles immediately starts to prowl the perimeter. Then, seemingly satisfied, jumps up onto the couch and stares up at Derek once again.

“Stay there,” Derek says grimly. “Don’t move. Don’t touch anything. Do you understand me?”  
  
Stiles gives a little _pirrup,_ which Derek takes to be agreement, so he heads to the kitchen and grabs some cleaning supplies from the cupboard.  
  
“I’m going to try and fix the damage to my car,” he says severely. “If you trash my loft while I’m gone, I swear to god I will turn you into a catburger and eat you.”  
  
Stiles doesn’t respond. Just stares at him sphinx-like.

“Well ok then,” Derek says, feeling slightly mollified.  
  
He heads out, and spends the next half hour removing unspeakable things from his car, and cleaning suspicious looking stains. The shredded passenger seat is— well, there’s nothing he can do about that one. He’ll have to get it repaired professionally.

Before he heads upstairs again, he tries to call Scott, but the call goes straight to voicemail.

When he finally makes his way back up to his apartment, Stiles isn’t on the couch anymore. And Derek has a moment of blind panic when he realizes he left a window open. That only lasts a second though, before his nostrils flare and, dumping the cleaning supplies by the door, he follows the scent trail upstairs to his bed.  
  
Stiles is curled up asleep in a ball of— well, no one would call it floofy— but it is fur, of a sort.

“Little shit,” Derek breathes, exhaling through his nose.

At least, as far as he can tell, Stiles hasn’t peed on anything, or shredded any more of his stuff. Yet.  
  
In fact, if he’s gonna be here for a while, Derek might have to think about getting some supplies.  
  
Reaching into his pocket he grabs his cell phone and dials Scott again. This time he leaves a message. “Hey, can you get back to me when you hear from Deaton. I need to know what’s happening.”

Once he’s done that, he jams the phone back in the pocket of his jeans and drums his fingers against his thigh.

Stiles seems quiet for now and perhaps, just to be on the safe side, Derek should drop by the pet store now, and get a couple of things.  
  
-

It’s around an hour later when he arrives home with shopping bags full of supplies. Six different cans of cat food, dry food, a water bowl, a food bowl, a litter box, bags of cat litter and a couple of toys that he found… just because.  
  
He dumps them all in the kitchen and starts to unload them onto the counter. Places newspaper on the floor and then fills the water bowl and sets it down on top of the paper. 

Then he spends the next ten minutes on his phone googling where the best place to position a cat litter box is.

He’s just about decided to put it in a quiet corner of the bathroom, when he hears a noise like the rumbling of freight train, and the next minute something small and furry is rubbing itself around his ankles, weaving between his legs and looking up hopefully.  
  
“You,” Derek says, glaring down. 

“Purrrow?” Stiles blinks up at him.  
  
“What do you want?”  
  
“Mrrrrroooooow,” Stiles rubs his head up against the back of Derek’s calf.  
  
“Drink?” Derek suggests, pointing to the water bowl. “Look, there.”  
  
Stiles doesn’t stop in his ministrations.  
  
“Food?” Derek picks up a can and waves it in Stiles' general direction and the purring intensifies.  
  
“Ok then.” Derek opens a can and, after considering the contents for a second tips around half of them into the food bowl and crosses the room to set it down next to the water bowl.

Stiles follows him, walks carefully up to the food bowl. Sniffs it. Circles it warily. Sniffs it again, and then stares up at Derek with what can only be described as disdain.

“Look you little sh-- Lil' S,” Derek says. “That’s cat food. You’re a cat. Ergo—” He makes a frustrated gesture toward the bowl of cat food.  
  
Stiles stares up at him reproachfully.  
  
“Human food won't be any good for you. You want me to feed you Cheetos and Mountain Dew? Because you'll be sick." Stiles' gaze radiates disapproval. "Fine,” Derek says, throwing his hands up in the air. “Fine. What do you want from me, huh?” He stomps across to the refrigerator and throws open the door. “We got leftover turkey bacon. We got ham.” He glares down at Stiles who stares up at him. “Chicken?” he grinds out. “Is that it? You want my chicken?”

Derek is weak, that’s all— that’s what he decides later, when he’s standing in his kitchen watching Stiles chow down on the chicken he was gonna cook himself for dinner. Stiles always manages to do this-- Forces himself into Derek's life. Disrupts everything. God. He should call Scott again.

-

He calls Scott twice more. Doesn’t get a reply. Decides he better settle in for the long haul, and puts the litter box in the bathroom, out the way.  
  
Then he carries Stiles up there and shows him. “This,” he says, jabbing a finger in the general direction of the litter box. “Is for you. Shit on my floor and I will skin you and turn you into a scarf.”

Stiles blinks at him. Then cranes his neck and rubs his downy little head against Derek’s cheek.

“Don’t,” Derek says, glaring down at him. “I can’t be won over. So. Don’t even try.”

Stiles purrs loudly, and keeps rubbing the flat of his head against Derek’s sandpaper chin. 

Something soft blooms very unwillingly in Derek’s chest. Derek attempts to choke it off at the source, but like a stubborn weed it blooms anyway. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself. Reaching up he scratches Stiles between the ears. “Ok, let’s go, lil’ S. I wanna watch Stranger Things.”

-

Derek eats a grilled cheese sandwich that night, and Stiles snaffles the best part of a pack of ham. When he's finished that he pads over to where Derek’s sprawled out on the couch watching TV, and plants himself on the couch directly in front of Derek’s face so he can’t see the screen.

“Hey, come on, Lil’ S” Derek says grabbing him firmly, he picks him up and plants him firmly on the floor again. Immediately Stiles jumps back up, and plants himself in the exact same spot.

“Fine,” Derek says, after they’ve been through this three or four times. “Have it your way, Jesus.”

He makes himself sit up straight and Stiles immediately jumps into his lap. Grudgingly Derek sweeps a hand through his fur, stroking it back and forth in an easy rhythm. “I wonder if you’re gonna remember any of this,” he wonders aloud, as the opening credits roll.

Stiles doesn’t respond, and when Derek looks down he realizes that’s because he’s asleep.

-

Derek calls Scott one more time before bed that night. There’s still no response, but he doesn’t bother to leave another voicemail. Scott knows where they both are if he needs them.

He’s stripped down to his underwear and about to climb into bed when there’s a scratching noise at his bedroom door. He stares at it for a long moment. Then, heaving a huge sigh he crosses the room and opens the door. 

“No,” he says, staring down at Stiles. “You can sleep literally anywhere else, but not here. This is my space.”

He shuts the door in Stiles’ face and goes back to his bed, climbs in, and pulls the covers around himself.

The scratching noise at the door intensifies. 

“No,” Derek calls. “Absolutely not. Go and sleep on the couch.”

Minutes later, a mournful yowling noise starts up. 

Derek jams both his pillows over his head and scrunches his eyes shut.

It’s no good.

“I’m not listening!” he calls.

“Wahgoroooooowmwwoooooowraawwwoorwww!” The noise goes on, and on, and on, and on. 

It’s only when he hears a neighbor beat their fists against the adjoining wall and scream, “Shut that fucking cat up!” That Derek finally relents.

He rolls out of bed, stomps across the room, flings the door open and glares down at Stiles, who immediately slinks past him, scoots across the room and jumps up on the bed— then lies down directly on top of Derek’s pillows, like it’s a nest that’s been prepared especially for him.

“I swear to god,” Derek grinds out. “When you’re human again I am going to—” There’s no point in finishing the sentence. Stiles has shut his eyes, and seems to be asleep _again_.

Sighing, Derek climbs reluctantly into his own bed for the third time that evening. There are no more pillows. That’s a battle he’s already lost. But he manages to find a semi-comfortable position and finally drifts off to sleep.

-

He wakes, or rather he’s woken, at five am the next morning, by Stiles batting a paw against his face like he thinks it’s a game.

“Mornin’ lil’ S,” Derek says blearily. “Geez, quit it, willya?” He bats the errant paw away and struggles to sit up. There’s a crick in his neck that’ll probably be gone in a few minutes, thanks to werewolf healing, but all in all he doesn’t feel so bad.

Stiles bounds off the bed, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and goes to stand by the door, meowing expectantly.

“Yeah, ok, ok,” Derek says, and with a huge yawn, gets out of bed and crosses the room to let him out. Then decides that now he’s up, he may as well go make breakfast.

-

There’s a garbled voicemail from Scott on Derek’s cell phone. It doesn’t make much sense, wherever he is can’t have much reception, and all Derek can make out is every fifth word.  
  
Something about Stiles. Something about Deaton. Something about a witch. The only bit that’s truly audible is the end, where Scott’s voice says, with perfect clarity, “Got that, dude?” 

Glaring at the phone, Derek ponders anew the ironies of life.

Then he tries to call Scott back but, once again, there’s no response.

-

After that, the day passes in a blur. Stiles sits with him and watches Ellen, rejects the rubber mouse Derek bought for him disdainfully, but allows Derek to rub his belly. Then he makes a nuisance of himself by climbing on Derek’s back while Derek tries to do push-ups. Ok. In truth, that isn’t a nuisance. It’s actually fuckin’ adorable, not that Derek would ever acknowledge the fact out loud. Stiles Stilinski, adorable? Who'd even think that? No one. Ha. Except, if Derek's honest with himself, it isn't the first time the thought has crossed his mind. It's just the first time he hasn't ruthlessly repressed it.

They share lunch together, (leftover turkey bacon), and then Stiles perches on Derek’s lap, while Derek pores over the various grimoires he's accrued over the years, researching witches. If all else fails, he thinks, maybe he can find some help in there for Stiles' furry little problem, but no dice.

“It’s nice,” Derek admits, later that day, when the sun begins to dip on the horizon, and the sky is ablaze with pinks and oranges. “It’s nice to have company. He strokes his fingers idly through Stiles’ fur. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I missed it until right now.”

It isn’t gonna last though, that’s the thing. Stiles is gonna get fixed, (there’s no way he won’t get fixed- Derek won’t allow himself to think about that possibility) but when he is, he’s not gonna want to hang around with Derek any more. Like he senses Derek’s melancholy mood, Stiles crawls closer and nuzzles deeper, and eventually they both drift off to sleep.

-

Derek’s woken the next morning when the door to his apartment is flung wide open.

“Did ya miss me?” crows Stiles at the top of his voice, striding into the room.

Derek, half awake, half asleep, throws himself off the couch in a state of panic and ends up dropping Lil’ S on the floor. 

“Wha-?” he says, blinking in confusion. “Who? Stiles?” He looks at Stiles, who’s standing in the doorway, then down at the little brown cat who is glaring up at him, utterly betrayed. “But—” Derek says. “But!?”

“I’m back!” Stiles says. “Didn’t you get Scott’s message?”

“But—” Derek blinks at him. “Scott said you were a cat.”

“Ha! No. Funny story. When the witch bamfed out of there, I was caught in the blast zone, if you know what I mean. Fried all the circuits on my phone as well. Had to hike twenty miles through to get somewhere and call Scott, who then drove out to collect me. He left you a message, dude.”

“But—” Derek gestures at the cat. “Lil’ S.”

Stiles cranes his neck to take a look. “Awwww. Wait. You called cat me Lil’ S? S for Stiles?”

“Uh,” Derek blinks. “Yeah. Sure.”

“You really think that cat looks like me?” Stiles cocks his head. He sounds half offended.

“Scott,” Derek says quickly. “Scott said. I questioned it. And Scott said he would know his best friend anywhere, Jesus.” He slumps onto the couch and puts his head in his hands.

A second later he hears Stiles’ approaching footsteps as he crosses the loft and takes a seat next to him. “Pretty cute cat, I guess,” he says, agreeably enough. "But it's nothing like me.”

“It behaved like you,” Derek says, through his hands.

“Ahhh. Charming. Debonair. Winning personality?”

“It drove me crazy. Pooped in the back seat of the Camaro, refused to eat anything that wasn’t human food, and stole all my pillows.”

Stiles makes a noise that might possibly be a laugh, although he bites down on it. “When have I ever done any of those things?” he says, mock offended.

“You would,” Derek says darkly, lifting his head to look at him. “if you were a cat. We both know you would.”

“And thinking it was me, you let cat-me get away with it,” Stiles points out. “Hah! Basically this cat is a metaphor for our whole relationship. Admit it, Derek Hale. Under that tough shell, you’re just a gooey marshmallow.” He nudges Derek companionably with his shoulder, waits until Derek meets his gaze and then says, fondly, "Thanks though, for taking care of me. Even if it wasn’t me.”

Derek swallows. Stiles’ eyes gleam golden-brown in the early morning sunlight that streams through the window. “S’ok,” he says gruffly. “You woulda done the same for me.” That much he knows is true.

Stiles gives a slight nod. “I would.” The look they share goes on and on until neither of them can hold the weight of the moment that’s stretching out between them. 

“So,” Stiles says, clearing his throat awkwardly, and looking away. “Um.”

At that moment Lil’ S stalks back over to them, and winds their way between Stiles’ legs purring like a freight train. Stiles picks the cat up and fusses it. Makes a humming, questioning kinda noise, then he lifts Lil' S tail up and peers underneath, then he turns to look at Derek. “You realize this cat is female,” he says, arching one eyebrow at Derek.

Derek opens his mouth. Then shuts it again. Then says. “Scott’s the one who works for a veterinarian."

“Right,” Stiles says, and he looks a lot like he’s trying not to laugh. Instead he puts Lil’ S down, fussing her one last time. Then slaps his hands against his thighs, in a decisive, lets-get-on-with-things, kind of way. “So, what do you wanna do? We can take her to the animal shelter? I have my car with me. We can spare your Camaro. My treat.”

Derek looks at Stiles, then down at Lil’ S, and releases a breath he feels like he’s been holding for a long while.

“Nah,” Derek says, after a beat. Reaching down he pets the fur at the ruff of her neck, and she leans into it. “No. She's a pain in the ass, but I think I’ll keep her.”

The look Stiles gives him in return is entirely too knowing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, if you felt like leaving comments or kudos on this fic then I'm eternally grateful to you! You guys, as always, are the true MVP's :-)
> 
> Also you can find me on [tumblr,](http://yodas-yo-yo.tumblr.com/) :D


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